Speechless
by Trainee Hero
Summary: When Lydia is injured during a bombing and brought to PPTH, House must deal with his personal feelings while trying to discover what illness is killing her.


Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital looked like a war zone. People were bleeding in the lobby, screaming for help. Doctors and nurses scrambled about, trying desperately to cope with the influx of patients. The noise in the place was deafening, with orders were being shouted out across the halls, gurneys were being wheeled through banging doors, patients howled out in either pain or frustration, equipment beeped, phones rang, feet thumped…

A cane padded across linoleum tiles.

The newly re-instated Dr Gregory House limped into view, his blue eyes scanning the carnage around him. His face was impassive, his thoughts on the situation unknown.

Someone had planted a bomb at the train station, a really nasty one that had made lots of flying shrapnel and fire. People had been blinded, had third degree burns, were missing limbs or couldn't feel the limbs they had left.

There had once been a time when Gregory House would have tried to get away from situations like this and wait for something more interesting to come along. Something interesting and mysterious that only he could solve.

But he was still trying to get better. He knew he needed to get better. So he did what he had been trained to do and made a valiant attempt not to complain.

He made it a whole half hour before he went whining to Cuddy, which was a personal best for him. She just threw him back out there.

Greg would eventually be glad that she had.

* * *

"Patient's name is Lydia Bohm, travelling from Arizona. Broken right femur and tibia, fractured left ulna, multiple contusions and lacerations as well as third degree burns down the right side of her body. She must have been standing pretty close to the bomb when it went off," said Foreman, wrapping his stethoscope around his neck. He took out a pen light and shone it into the unconscious woman's eye. "She's probably concussed too, see if you can get her to a bed." The last part was directed at one of the nurses, who nodded and quickly went to follow the order.

Foreman stared down at the woman on the gurney. Her dark blonde hair had rusty red streaks of blood running through it, one of her eyes had swollen up to three times its normal size and turned a nasty shade of purple and her nose had a thin rivulet of dried blood running underneath it. _'I bet you looked pretty good before all this happened to you,' _he couldn't help but think.

These terrorist attacks just seemed so pointless to him. They were supposed to be some form of outcry and protest, but what were they trying to say? No -one remembered why the bombs had been set, no -one really knew what the bombers were trying to say, so what was the point of it all?

A little boy was wheeled past Foreman on a gurney, his right arm reduced to a bloody stump. He had wires and tubes sticking out of him, a large beeping monitor was rolled along beside him and he seemed to be more machine that human. Foreman watched him go, until he rounded the corner and disappeared.

_What was the point?_

_

* * *

  
_

"House?"

Greg House looked up from bandaging a man's arm, (now there would be a big white scar to match the skull and crossbones tattoo), to see James Wilson walking towards him with two paper cups full of what House assumed was crappy hospital coffee in his hands.

Admittedly, his friendship with Wilson had been a bit strained lately, but they were trying to get better together. When Wilson had finally been ready to move Amber's things to a storage room, House had been there to help carry the bottles of beer in and the boxes out. Wilson hadn't quite been ready to pack things away sober, but he was getting there. And whenever House felt the vicodin bottle calling to him in the night, Wilson was always there to stop him heading down that slippery slope again. Their fridge was now full of fancy foods that had been created during several midnight cooking sessions. Things were definitely getting better for both of them.

"I'm not really sure if I should be grateful for the coffee, or insulted because of the whole 'the cripple can't do anything for himself' thing."

Well, they were a _little_ better.

Wilson just rolled his eyes and handed House one of the cups. House took a gulp, grimaced at the taste, finished bandaging the man's arm, gave him the lousy coffee and sent him on his way.

Wilson just took a sip of his and looked around. "God, how many more of these people are there?" he said, despairing at the carnage around him.

"Most people just call me House, and there are plenty more where that guy came from, it was a big bomb."

Wilson just shot House a look and picked up a roll of gauze, ready to get to work.


End file.
